Lincoln's Run?

Rating: 6/10 (11 August 2005)

I'll start by stating the obvious - if you're thirty or over, then the first thing to go through your mind while watching this film will be: "Didn't I see this when it was called Logan's Run?" While a comparison to Michael Anderson's 1976 classic is inevitable (and it borrows a fair bit from Blade Runner and The Clonus Horror as well) The Island still stands up as a decent enough movie in its own right... well, kind of.
In the year 2019 (why are these movies always set in 2019?) the "survivors" of a global plague live in an enclosed city environment where everything is carefully monitored and controlled... for their own good, naturally. It's the kind of society where everyone dresses the same, everyone has a mindless job that they don't understand (you inject the chemicals into the tubes, but where do the tubes go?) the state tells you what to wear, what to eat and who to talk to, and your toilet analyzes your pee to tell you when you're eating too much salt. Your only hope for a better life is to win a state-controlled lottery in which the winners are selected to go to the Island - the last uncontaminated environment on Earth, where the lucky winners can live in a tropical paradise, romping on the beach, swimming in the ocean and breeding like rabbits to repopulate the Earth. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, there's a reason for that...
The feaces hits the oscillator when two inhabitants of the city - Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) figure out that the whole thing is an elaborate sham. The city is a fake environment underneath a hospital complex, its inhabitants are clones of people living out in the real world, and those who win the lottery sure as hell aren't going to a tropical paradise...
It's certainly not original (I kept half-expecting McGregor to run through the city screaming "Soylent Green is people!!!") but it's entertaining enough. McGregor does a nice job of portraying both the perplexed clone and his smarmy cell donor (with two different accents, which was a nice bit of attention to detail) and Scarlett Johansson is... well, incredibly hot, but she can act as well. More good stuff comes from Sean Bean as the arrogant doctor running the show, Ethan Phillips (anybody remember Benson?) as Lincoln's geeky workmate, and Steve Buscemi as, er... Steve Buscemi. I personally think it should win the gong for Original Score, and some of the imagery is mind-blowing, especially in the dream sequence at the start. It does have a big problem in that most of the middle of the film is an extended noisy chase sequence, which drags on way too long and gets kind of boring - it's not a good thing when your mind starts wandering in the middle of a film. There are also a few niggling plot holes (especially near the end) and the conclusion of the film leaves a few too many questions unanswered.
All round, though, it's not a bad flick. It's just that... it's been done.